Archive for the ‘GameBoy’ Category

Wario Ware Twisted

Saturday, October 13th, 2007

What would you do if you had a game that was built on the concept of having lots of smaller games grouped together in a package? A game that became pretty successful because of its accessible nature? Why, make a sequel of course!

But you don’t want to make just any sequel. You need a hook. A way to draw people in. Let’s say that you have a cartridge with the ability to detect rotational motion. Let’s further suppose that you decided to make a bunch more micro games around this concept. Now we have the makings for a sequel! Twisted is a lot like the first game, you have a bunch of characters with mostly unrelated stories, and you have to play through these microgames to see the stories to their conclusion. Normally, not a bit of it would make any kind of sense, but in the game’s universe, it all kind of works… somehow.

From the video, it’s kind of hard to tell, but you’re playing by rotating your GameBoy, and in later games occasionally hitting the ‘A’ button. Yes, this will make you look quite foolish if you are playing this in public, but I found that to be a small price to pay. The games in this one are just as addictive as in the first one, and it is possible to unlock the first game if you play this one long enough. So it’s almost like getting two games. But since each of the two games has well over 100 games inside, it’s like getting 200+ tiny games for your dollars, which is pretty hard to beat.

Wario Ware: Mega Microgame$

Sunday, September 16th, 2007

This article originally appeared on my main site in March of 2004. Enjoy!


It’s really hard to classify a game like Wario Ware. It’s what I like to call a Metagame. It’s a game that’s made up of a lot of smaller games, kind of like the Mario Party series, except that this is (mostly) a one player experience.

So what is it exactly that you do in this game? Well, storyline aside, your goal is to progress through ‘courses’ of micro-games, each one with a distinct theme and a boss-game every so often. The controls for all of the micro-games are different, but they are fairly intuitive, and they have to be. You have about three seconds to figure out what you’re supposed to do and then do it before the next game starts.

The micro-games that this cartridge offers is where the game really shines. There are about 200 of the things locked away in this cartridge, and while there are some similarities between some of them, they are different enough that each one seems like a whole new experience. The games are broken up into themes (or courses) that are presented be the characters in the game. Jimmy with the gigantic afro has sports games, Mona rides a scooter and presents the weird games, and 9-Volt the grade-schooler presents the old-school games just to name a few.

The graphics in this game are extremely varied. They range from extremely simple, to photographic quality. Every one of the games has a distinctive look to it, which is quite a feat considering the amount of them that there are. The scenes that play out to tell the story of the game are particularly well done.

Running through the courses of the micro-games isn’t all there is to do in this game. The game offers a practice mode where you can hone your skills at a particular game (as well as unlock some of the game’s secrets). There are some full versions of some games that you can unlock that have a Wario flavor to them such as Dr. Wario and Sheriff (an very old Nintendo arcade title), there are some extended versions of some of the micro-games and there are a few two-player games that require both players to use the same Game Boy. Definitely an interesting experience.

Wario Ware is one of those games that is perfectly suited to the Game Boy. It’s a game that’s got an incredible amount of variety, it’s easy to pick up and play, and it’s a good game to play in between other games, or on road trips or wherever. This is one of those games that you absolutely can not go wrong with.

Milon’s Secret Castle

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

It is not necessary to understand the plot of Milon’s Secret Castle to glean all the enjoyment out of it. All you really need to know is that Milon has to muddle his way through a castle to:

  1. Find and defeat a series of dragon-type monsters
  2. Collect crystal balls to gain power
  3. Decipher incomprehensible clues and, if you’re lucky
  4. Rescue the princess

This all sounds easier than it is, this game is unforgivingly tough. Milon’s weapon of choice is bubbles. Bubbles that don’t go far, and don’t do much damage. This is slightly unfortunate, since there are bubble-resistant enemies infesting the rooms in the castle. You kill them and they come back in a few seconds. You can get stronger bubbles by defeating the dragons that inhabit the castle, but if you’ve ever tried to kill a dragon with bubbles, you know how difficult that can be.

Compounding Milon’s troubles are the rooms themselves. To solve the rooms, take the treasures, and find the exits, you’ll have to do the most nonintuitive things: shoot an empty place in midair to make a necessary item appear, hit a block from underneath to make a collectible item pop out, or my favorite, push a block on the ground for about 4 seconds to make it slide out of the way, then shoot the place where it was to find a door to a shop, where the shopkeeper will sell you ‘clues’.

I will admit that I did quite enjoy this game when I first played it in the early 90’s. The thrill of exploring the castle was pretty intense. Once I realized I wasn’t actually making any progress, I shelved the game until many years later when it became available for the Game Boy, where I bought it (never can pass up a chance to purchase a piece of my childhood), and finished it within a few days. If you enjoy plodding through the game like you’re blind, uncoordinated horse that got drunk off of some fermented apple juice, then go for it. Just make sure you have a walkthrough handy for this one, it’ll help ease some of the pain.

Frogger

Friday, September 7th, 2007

Video games don’t have to make sense to still be fun. I kind of wish that there were more games these days that were a little more off-the-wall, games where you had to suspend truckloads of disbelief to enjoy the story. In other words, the story is immaterial.

Frogger is a game about getting a frog across a street and across a river to the docks on the other side. The street? Full of traffic. Successfully dodge and weave your way around the cars and trucks or you’ll be squished. Then you make it to the band in the middle where you get a brief reprieve. You then have to navigate floating logs, and the backs of turtles who will dive at a moment’s notice because your frog, for reasons yet unexplained, can’t swim. Pick up the hot female frog and catch the fly for bonus points. Oh, and don’t get eaten by the alligators, dogs, or snakes.

Why can’t the frog swim? Why was the frog across the busy freeway to start with? Who cares? The game is fun anyway.

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Monday, August 27th, 2007

Like a lot of Americans I had never heard much about the Fire Emblem series until I played Super Smash Bros. Melee and was introduced to two characters from the franchise. Turns out that the series is hugely popular in Japan, and has had almost as many sequels as Final Fantasy.


Video of the tutorial mission.

Fire Emblem is a tactical strategy game that’s heavy on the story-telling. The story is nothing special, you take the last remaining heirs to the throne and assemble a rag-tag group of an army to overthrow the evil that is taking over the land. The story is mostly told in lengthy scenes between the battles featuring large portraits speaking with each other. Between these scenes you have battles, one of the defining aspects of the game. The flow is pretty simple: all of your guys move, then all of the enemy guys move. Generally it’s your goal to mow down all of the opposing forces, but there are some other chapters with slightly differing goals: reach a particular point on the map, keep someone alive for so many turns, and the like. You need to be somewhat of a tactician to maneuver your troops in such a way that the weaker units don’t get slaughtered. Unlike some other games of this type, once your guys fall on the battlefield, they’re dead forever. This can be especially devastating if you’ve invested a lot of time and resources into building up your guys, only to have them cut down due to a boneheaded move on your part.

During certain chapters various named characters will join the fracas. Some of these folks you can convince to join you if you manage to take the right character up to them and manage to talk to them before you kill them off.

One problem I had with the game is that there are far more characters available than I had the time and resources to build up. The difficulty of the game ramps up considerably, and I kept a team of about a dozen units fairly well buffed-up. I had another dozen or so units that were woefully underlevelled, and didn’t see much playtime.

The thing is, your units can support each other in the battlefield. Pair up certain units enough times and they will eventually give you the option to have them speak to each other. This both rounds out the characters significantly and makes them more effective in the long run. If you want to see them all and have the best units you can, it would behoove you to play through the game multiple times.

While I wouldn’t be opposed to playing through the game a second or third time (I understand you unlock some of the game’s secrets if you finish it multiple times) that first time took me nearly 30 hours, not including all of the time I lost after restarting a mission due to a miscalculation that led to the death of one on my units. I was eventually able to finish the entire game while keeping everyone alive to the end, and it was very gratifying. I would recommend anyone with a passing interest in ’stragery’ give it a look.

Rush ‘n’ Attack

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

I guess that games set in wartime are popular for the same reason that movies set in wartime are popular. Folks like seeing some super-macho tough guy defeating an army that’s armed to the teeth (possibly even to the gills). Rush ‘N’ Attack is no different.

In Rush ‘N’ Attack you control a guy that’s armed with a knife. He has to run to the right, brutally murdering everyone in his way as he searches for P.O.W.s. Most enemy soldiers can be killed with one knife stab to the stomach. You’re equally as fragile, as you can be killed by one touch from anything: kick to the head, dog’s teeth to the face, flamethrower to the front, rocket to the chin, etc.

The big challenge in this game comes not solely from the fact that your character is about as tough as a wet piece of tissue paper hanging from a clothesline on a windy day. It comes from the crazily ineffective controls. Enemies have the uncanny ability to leap onscreen just out of range of your sharpened letter opener, and kick your face off. Without a ludicrous amount of memorization and laser-sharp reflexes, you’re going to lose a lot.

I got tired of losing around the end of stage 2, and hung up my fatigues and butter knife.

Mario Bros.

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007

Before they were super, and really before they gained worldwide notoriety, Mario and his brother Luigi spent their days cleaning out sewers. For some reason the sewer they’re spending their time in has a series of platforms and some pipes at each corner of the screen. Various enemies come out of the pipes at the top of the screen and walk lazily along the platforms toward the pipes on the bottom, which they’ll enter and reappear at the top. Enemies like crabs, turtles, and jumping flies (technically called “Side Steppers”, “Shell Creepers”, and “Fighter Flies”). What will Mario and his brother do? How can they rid the sewers of this vermin?

All three of these enemies, it happens, are vulnerable if they are flipped over on their backs. Pound the ground underneath their feet and will flip over (some are tougher to flip than others). Once they’re incapacitated you just run up and kick them into the water below. Once you kick them, a coin will appear that you can grab for bonus points, but the real goal is to clear out all of the enemies so you can go to the next screen with more pipe-dwellers.

The game gets pretty tough as you go on. There are fireballs that move erratically, icy enemies (Slipice) that make the floor slippery if not dispatched quickly, and icicles that fall from the ceiling. It gets pretty harrowing.

There’s not a lot to this game, but you do need some finely tuned reflexes and the ability to be able to see nearly the entire screen at all times. It’s devious in its ability to draw you in with the simple first few stages and the completely maniacal later stages.

Wario Ware: Mega Microgame$

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

This article originally appeared on my main site back in March of 2004.


It’s really hard to classify a game like Wario Ware. It’s what I like to call a Metagame. It’s a game that’s made up of a lot of smaller games, kind of like the Mario Party series, except that this is (mostly) a one player experience.

So what is it exactly that you do in this game? Well, storyline aside, your goal is to progress through ‘courses’ of micro-games, each one with a distinct theme and a boss-game every so often. The controls for all of the micro-games are different, but they are fairly intuitive, and they have to be. You have about three seconds to figure out what you’re supposed to do and then do it before the next game starts.

The micro-games that this cartridge offers is where the game really shines. There are about 200 of the things locked away in this cartridge, and while there are some similarities between some of them, they are different enough that each one seems like a whole new experience. The games are broken up into themes (or courses) that are presented be the characters in the game. Jimmy with the gigantic afro has sports games, Mona rides a scooter and presents the weird games, and 9-Volt the grade-schooler presents the old-school games just to name a few.

The graphics in this game are extremely varied. They range from extremely simple, to photographic quality. Every one of the games has a distinctive look to it, which is quite a feat considering the amount of them that there are. The scenes that play out to tell the story of the game are particularly well done.

Running through the courses of the micro-games isn’t all there is to do in this game. The game offers a practice mode where you can hone your skills at a particular game (as well as unlock some of the game’s secrets). There are some full versions of some games that you can unlock that have a Wario flavor to them such as Dr. Wario and Sheriff (an very old Nintendo arcade title), there are some extended versions of some of the micro-games and there are a few two-player games that require both players to use the same Game Boy. Definitely an interesting experience.

Wario Ware is one of those games that is perfectly suited to the Game Boy. It’s a game that’s got an incredible amount of variety, it’s easy to pick up and play, and it’s a good game to play in between other games, or on road trips or wherever. This is one of those games that you absolutely can not go wrong with.

Castlevania

Sunday, July 15th, 2007

This article originally appeared on this site in July of 2005. Enjoy!


Nintendo had this great idea: To capitalize on the retro trend they would release a series of old NES games retooled to play on the Game Boy Advance… and charge $20 a pop. I know I’m not the only one who thought that this was a little steep for just one classic game, especially when you can get compilations like Mega Man Anniversary Collection for $30 that has 10 classic games. Fortunately, a trip to my local EBGames has revealed that at least one of these alleged classic games now retails for $9.99.

This package contains: the original NES Castlevania, original graphics, original sounds, original manual, and a battery-backed save system. So if you’ve played the original Castlevania, you know what to expect and already know if you think the game’s worth the cash. I’ve put more hours into the NES version than I did into my entire college education, so I may be slightly biased.

The story goes something like this: Dracula has cursed your family and you have to kill him. A simple premise for a simpler time. You have to work your way through Dracula’s castle fighting generic scary things, culminating in a fight with old Drac himself.

You have the standard assortment of evil-stomping weapons: a whip (which can be upgraded), daggers, stopwatches, axes, crosses (I mean boomerangs!), and holy water (I mean firebombs!). Some of the items that might have had something to do with religion were renamed due to Nintendo’s staunch ‘no-religion’ policy that was in place at the time. Anyway, the items are sufficiently different from each other and are each useful in certain situations. To progress at this game you will need to compliment Simon’s physical limitations with each of the different subweapons at your disposal.

The challenge this game offers is fairly typical of games of the era. The game starts out fairly easy, and each stage ramps up the difficulty until the end of the game where it’s so hard that you might feel like ripping your Game Boy in two. Thankfully, there is a save feature so you can actually turn off the game and walk away. Then you can pick up where you left off instead of trying to finish the game in one sitting.

Other than the save feature, this game is absolutely identical to the NES version, for good or ill. Your success in this game is absolutely dependant on your skill (or lack thereof). Simon does exactly what you tell him to, and there are very few random elements. Oftentimes in similar games that means that there is a lot of memorization to progress. That’s not entirely the case with this game. You just need practice.

Classic Castlevania is a perfect fit for the GBA. It’s got a good mix of fun and challenge, and the game-save feature makes it super easy to pick up and play in short bursts. Now that it’s finally down to the $10 price point, you can hardly go wrong with it.

Game Name: Classic NES Series: Castlevania
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Purchased from: EBGames
Amount of money I wasted on it: $9.99
One word summary: Good!

Donkey Kong 3

Saturday, July 7th, 2007

Donkey Kong 3 is the oddball of the Donkey Kong series. Mario? Gone. Donkey Kong Jr.? Gone. Now we have Donkey Kong grabbing some vines that are surrounded by nests of of bugs, which he agitates. The bugs come out and attempt to make off with the plants at the bottom of the screen. It’s up to the new protagonist, Stanley, to use his canister of bug spray to either kill all the bugs or shoot Donkey Kong in the hinder to make him climb the vines up to the next screen.

Eventually, Donkey Kong will climb up so high that he’ll get his head stuck in a conveniently-placed bug nest and fall down square on his head.

It’s probably worth noting that this game is pretty uncommon. Few people that I talk to have heard of it, and Stanley has not appeared in any other game to date that I know of, though he was immortalized as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Is the game any fun? It was never my cup of tea, but it might be worth playing once so you know what it’s like.